NOT requesting NEED-BASED AID, NO BUDGET CONSTRAINT
SAT: 1500
W GPA: 3.95/5.0
UW GPA: 3.39/4.0
Rank: 445/1585 (Q2)
~10 AP credits
Highest Math: AP Calculus BC
ECs:
Orchestra, 3 years, Chamber II
Robotics, 2 years, BEST Marketing Presentation Alternate, FRC Programmer
$50,000 stock brokerage account, managed for 3 years, avg 7.6% annual growth
member in local Finance & Economics Club
employment during summer since '22 and some parts of the school year
service in two charitable/volunteer musical ensembles
church youth group volunteer service
church choir volunteer service
Also, give me some target schools to go for! Thank you!
Your GPA is very low and your rank is acceptable but 28%. For UT to be a safety it has to be top 6% and A&M top 10% - and you’re not even fringe.
Rice is 89% in the top 10% and at U Mich 1% had your GPA. So these two are not just reaches but super reaches.
What I’d ask is - what are you looking for?
If it’s a big school, look at the two Arizona schools or a Miami of Ohio type or Alabama, Arkansas, Houston, etc.
If it’s a Rice type school, look at a U Denver, Elon, Tulsa, Butler, American (reach) or schools like that. A Trinity would be a reach but worth a shot if you want to stay in TX - Southwestern could be good.
If you give more info - geography, size, sports, greek, etc. you can get more tailored responses.
@cart0n 2nd quarter will hurt, for UT Austin and A&M, but Econ not as difficult as McCombs/Mays Business. I’d think easily get into UTSA, doubtful straight UT or A&M.
MIchigan recomputes your high school GPA for admissions purposes, ignoring plusses and minuses; so a B+ = 3.0 and an A- = 4.0. If you have a lot of B+ grades, that will hurt you admissions-wise with UMich, especially as an OOS applicant.
Also, if you haven’t done so, check out the Common Data Sets for schools that you are considering. Section C7 tells you how different academic and non-academic admissions factors are weighted by a school; Sections C9-C11 give objective information for recently matriculated students, which may in turn give you a crude estimate of how you compare with them for admissions purposes.
You might look at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN, here: https://www.rhodes.edu/. It is a well-regarded LAC that offers majors in business and economics; and it gets a healthy number of students from Texas who are shut out of automatic admits to UT-Austin.
UTSA has rolling admission. I think it’s a good safety for you.
U of Houston is another safety.
UTD and SMU seem to be in the target range.
In a school this big, there must be students similar to you in the previous classes. Where are they attending now? I’d suggest you ask the orchestra director, BEST and FRC coaches, core subject teachers you feel comfortable taking to, etc. See where the students like you are, and use the information as your reference.
@cart0n have you looked at Baylor? They’ve got a great business school, many ways to volunteer/serve in the community, tons of local churches-with opportunities to serve in their orchestra. Economics is in Hankamer Business School, with the ability to pick up a 2nd business major. Gorgeous campus, Big 12 athletics.
I’d also look at UH. Since you’ve done robotics, they have those cool robots that go all over campus. Not sure where Econ is at UH, but they’ve got a solid business school, with many opportunities for internships and jobs, being in Houston. I’d think you have a good shot at UH Honors program. They just joined Big 12.
Both Baylor and UH have outstanding music schools. While not a music major, perhaps opportunities to play in non major orchestras, or pick up a music minor?
I would think twice about putting this in your app.
A. The $50k investment pot screams “privileged, rich kid”
B. Looking at years 2019-2022, or alternatively the last 36 months, your 7.6% average return is either about the same as, or less than, the S&P500 return, so it doesn’t indicate alpha generation if that’s what you were trying to show (and in any case, it won’t matter for admission).
If you’re interested in staying in Texas, these are some schools that I’d give serious consideration to, in rough order of smallest to largest undergrad population:
U. of Dallas
Trinity
Southern Methodist
Texas Christian
Baylor
UT-Dallas
Texas Tech
U. of Houston
If you’re interested in going out of state, these are some schools you may want to consider:
Wheaton (IL)
St. Olaf (MN)
Calvin (MI)
SUNY Geneseo
James Madison (VA)
Indiana U.
But really, what do you want out of your college experience? What are your preferences? States to target (or avoid)? Climate? Size of school? Urban/suburban/rural campus? Importance of intercollegiate sports fandom? Greek life? Do you prefer the anonymity of large classes (hundreds of students) or do you prefer the intimacy of small classes? Are there particular interests you want to pursue while in college? We can all give lots of different recommendations, but they really need to be the right ones. If you tell us more about what you want, the better the recommendations will be.
Your class rank hurts you at all Texas public universities and your UW GPA hurts you at private universities.
You MIGHT get capped for Econ at UT instead of straight denied, same at TAMU (well, their Community college guarantee), but I doubt that’s what you want – IOW theyre all out of reach.
Texas State, UT SA, UT Tyler are all safeties. UTD a low match for Econ, a match for math.
I’d go all in for U Houston Honors/Econ (big city opportunities+honors opportunities +personal network should be a winning combination).
TCU a possible high match, SMU a possible reach.
Out of state:
Miami Ohio probably has the cachet and business school network you’re looking for.
You can always try Pitt, they like high test scores.
UGeorgia and GMU (VA) perhaps, Georgia State, App State, JMU, and UNC Wilmington for sure.
Fordham in NYC, StJoe’s and Drexel in Philadelphia, Duquesne in Pittsburgh, Loyola in Chicago, St Thomas and Hamline in Minneapolis St Paul (potentially UMN TC depending on college).
Seconding Rhodes and St Olaf if you want smaller colleges. St olaf especially good for Math.
Trinity CT as a reach.
For Econ: Drew would be a safety, excellent access to NYC (internships).
Being full pay could help you at Dickinson, Gettysburg (both reaches). Ohio Wesleyan would be a safety.
You can look at the “A+ colleges for B+ students” rankings/theads or the thread for parents of 3.4 GPA kids (where they applied and got in-lots of good ideas).